


Siblings

by Jessyn



Series: Talira Legacy: Moments Between Missions [3]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 00:25:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15473415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessyn/pseuds/Jessyn
Summary: Let's meet the family, or what's left of it.





	Siblings

Sadie's POV

Thank whatever gods still existed for Aric Jorgan. Surly as he was, that man was the only reason I hadn't gone completely off the rails during the massive shitnado that had been Coruscant. The fallout from Ord Mantell had been bad enough, the ops about as I expected them to be, but …

Mom. A week out now, and I still hadn't stopped long enough to let it sink in. I couldn't. I had a job to do, and by gods, I was going to get it done. Aric deserved better than the short end of the stick he'd been given, and Mom had taught me and Fyd better than to leave things half finished.

Shit. Morfyd. She still didn't know.

“Ugggghhhhhh … damn it,” I muttered, dropping my head to the galley table with a dull _thunk_. We were en route to Port Raga, to rescue that Cathar senator with a giant stick up his ass. Garza wanted me to bag Wraith, too, but my limited experience with her told me that was unlikely to happen. “Seetoo, what's our eta to the next hyperlane relay?”

“Two hours, twenty-seven minutes, and fifteen seconds, master,” was the nauseatingly chipper response. Were I in a better frame of mind, I would probably be able to brush off the droid's personality program.

Two and a half hours. That was all the time I had to figure out how I was going to tell my sister Mom had passed. For the moment, I was exceedingly grateful that we weren't at full force; Seetoo and Aric would be the only ones to bear witness to what was likely to be an epic shouting match.

What I wouldn't do for a drink.

~*~

I listened to the comm chirp once, twice, three times, and just as it started the fourth, Mako's voice connected and her face shimmered into view. Shit.

“Oh, hey, Sadie!” She sounded entirely too cheery for things to be going well. “What's new?”

“Mako, is.... look, sweetie, I need to talk to Fyd. Please tell me she's not off shooting someone right now.” I sighed and scrubbed a knuckle over the bridge of my nose. I had half hoped they were in coms blackout or in hyperspace, so I wouldn't have to do this.

“Well, she's not, but she's kind of in the middl--”

“It's important, Mako. Fyd needs to hear this from me, and I've only got a few minutes before I hit hyperspace again.”

“But --”

“Now, Mako!” I barked in my commanding officer voice. “Whatever she and Uncle Braedan are up to, it can wait.”

“Uh. Yeah, okay.” Mako's voice had gone from forcibly cheerful to something between sullen and fearful. I didn't get short with people often, and I was kind of scary when I did, apparently. “Just a second.”

The slight woman's figure shimmered out of view, and I had a moment to compose myself. No matter how frayed my nerves were, I couldn't let Morfyd get under my skin. There wasn't any alcohol on the ship I could use to take the edge off the headache that would follow if I did.

“Dee, this better be good, I'm right in the middle of something,” Fyd's voice was as surly as her face when the image loaded in. “It doesn't look that great when I have to tell my Mandalorian handler to call me back in five.”

I groaned internally. This was … not going to go well.

“I'm sorry, Fyd,” I said, trying hard to sound remorseful and not exhausted. “I have ten minutes before my next jump, and I've been under comm blackout for a week. This is the soonest I could get you.”

“What do you mean the soonest...” I tried not to cringe as I watched the realization of what I was trying to say settle in over my twin sister's face. Shock, pain, and then, yep, there it was, the anger. I closed my eyes against her tirade as she started in. “Mom died, didn't she? And you couldn't be bothered to call me sooner?! Or, you know, maybe BEFORE she died, so I could be there?! HOW COULD YOU, SADAKO!” Morfyd roared through the comm, her voice echoing off the walls of the Thunderclap.

“I'm sorry, Morfyd.” My voice was soft enough that I wasn't sure she heard me, but … nope, there it was.

“You're sorry. _YOU'RE_ sorry?!” She'd turned her back to the camera, and now she rounded on me. Even all my specforce training couldn't keep me from flinching; she'd always been bigger than me, with the wilder temper. “Not sorry enough to call me sooner! Not sorry enough to try to find me and tell me in person – oh, no, you opted for the coward's way out: a holocall! Not sorry enough to tell me when you'd gone back to Coruscant so I could be there!”

“Fyd, please --”

“Don't you 'Fyd, please,' me!” She threw her hands up and turned away, scrubbing them through her white, asymmetrical bob. “This is just great. Just fucking perfect. First Braedan, now Mom … Could this GET any better?!”

I must have made enough of a noise to pull her attention back to me. Even in the monochrome shades of blue, I could see Morfyd's eyes flashing with self-satisfied vengeance.

“Oh, yeah, Uncle Braedan got shot a few weeks back,” my sister sneered. I knew she didn't really mean all of this, that it was just the grief and the stress talking, that she'd never really been able to keep her shit together under pressure. Didn't mean it didn't hurt, though. “Some snivelling womp-rat fucker killed him to try to keep me from a Great Hunt sponsorship.” I heard Mako exclaiming from somewhere behind Morfyd, probably trying to chastise her for how she was handling this. Good try, sweetheart. “Oh, but don't you worry your good little soldier head over it, Dee, I'll get it all taken care of so you d--”

Morfyd's face cut out abruptly, to be replaced with Mako's. I could still hear Fyd yelling in the background, which told me Mako had cut off the main comm and put me through on the bridge unit. She was going to catch hell from Fyd for this stunt, but I owed her one for it.

“Sadie, I'm sorry about her; you know how she gets,” Mako started. “She doesn't mean it like that.”

“Don't worry about it, kiddo.” I sighed, pinching my nose. “I'm sorry to hear about Uncle Braedan; I know he adored you. Mom did too.”

“You want me to have her call you when she's cooled off?” The question was asked out of genuine concern. Bless her.

“No; she'll do it on her own, when she's ready. Don't push it.” I offered up a wan smile, and the hyperspace timer chimed just as I could hear Fyd's voice getting louder. “Gotta go, sweetheart. Find her something to shoot, and a hot man to fuck, okay?”

“Aye ma'am,” Mako half smiled and mock saluted, then cut the call.

~*~

Aric's POV

I had tried not to overhear Sadie's conversation on the comm, really I had. It didn't take much for at least one side of the conversation to make it through the closed door of the armory, though. With a quietly resigned sigh, I opened the door and leaned against the bulkhead. Might as well be there when this all blew over, and she needed someone to hit, poor thing.

It became clear to me near immediately that the woman she was talking to was her sister; as when I met her mother, the family resemblance was strong. This woman, however, had none of their mother's quiet poise, though she had all of the durasteel spine and a temper to forge it with. Damn. And every molecule of her temper was focused on Sadie, which was likely my only saving grace at the moment.

The image cut out in the middle of a vicious tirade, to be replaced by the face of a slight young woman with facial implants. The women exchanged a few words, the hyperspace timer chimed, and the call ended. I stayed still, waiting to see how bad the explosion of temper was.

Except, there wasn't one.

In utter shock, I watched my CO crumple in on herself and drop to her knees, hands pressed hard to her face. The briefest second later, the sound of quiet sobbing hit my ears. Sadie was crying. My commanding officer, Sadako Caron, the woman who made Jedi look like petulant toddlers, was crying.

Fuck.

I stood frozen for a minute with indecision, then growled under my breath. She wasn't just my CO. She was my friend, and she needed a shoulder.

It's amazing how quietly someone can move when they're not wearing an unholy amount of armor, or even shoes, for that matter. We both had taken to bare feet and loose-ish clothing the moment we'd broken atmo on Coruscant; we'd spent so much time in armor or uniforms lately it was a welcome break. I knelt silently next to her, then slowly placed a hand on her shoulder. “Uh, Sadie?”

My eyes went wide as she hiccuped, then dropped heavily against my chest, still sobbing. Not precisely the reaction I'd planned for. Three seconds later, my brain kicked into gear, and I wrapped both arms around her suprisingly narrow shoulders. She made a small snuffling noise as I adjusted how we were sitting, moving around so my back was against the comm table and she was settled on the floor between my knees.

“ 'm sorry,” she tried, between heaving sobs. “I'm sorry; you don't need to deal with --”

“You stop that,” I rumbled softly. “The amount of bullshit you've dealt with lately, I'm impressed you haven't done this before now.”

Sadie hiccuped, maybe a little hysterically, and tried to force herself back to calm, if her gulping breaths were any indication. I tucked her a little more snuggly against my chest. Screw Garza and her reminders about fraternization; Sadie needed a friend and emotional support more than we needed to maintain the formality of rank right now.

“Your sister?” I murmured, once her breathing started to slow. She nodded against my chest, making the damp spots from her tears tug at my fur.

“Twin,” she mumbled, sniffling. “Fraternal, she's older by fifteen minutes.” The response was so rote, I could tell she'd had similar conversations innumerable times.

“I'm sorry she didn't take it well, and about your uncle.”

“Heard all that, huh?” I watched her scrub the back of her hand across her face before she tipped her head up to look at me. It was the first time I'd been close enough to her to get a really good look at how life had worn on her face. She couldn't have been older than twenty-five, but already there were small stress lines settling around her eyes and the corners of her mouth. Even red-rimmed and puffy, her eyes were a pretty shade of cobalt, and the splash of orange over her right eye didn't detra-- wait a second...

“Yeah. Is that... a tattoo?” I reached up and brushed her auburn hair out of the way, an eyebrow raising as the rest of her tattoo was revealed. “It is. How the hell …?”

“Did I manage to get it past boot camp?” She offered a small smile; at least she was distracted for a moment. “Trade secret. Maybe I'll tell you someday.” With a bit of a sigh, she dropped her head back against my chest. She seemed so defeated. It wasn't a state that suited her.

“Hey.” I nudged her shoulders a bit, giving her an awkward half-smile when she looked up again. “Look, I'm … not that great at this sort of thing, but … balls.” I sighed, and I'm sure my face looked pained as I tried to start over. “You've been dealt a shit hand, Sadie. You decide you need a drinking buddy, you let me know.”

That earned me a wet chuckle and an elbow to the ribs before she stood up.

“Thanks, Aric. I'll take you up on that sometime.

-fin-


End file.
